The poor, even while employed and receiving public assistance, have a hard time making ends meet in New York City, according to this article in the New York Times.

This makes me wonder why they don’t move,. If moving is too great an expense, shouldn’t the city help them move? Given the high cost of living in this city, wouldn’t it be wise for many families to cut their losses and try to start afresh in parts of the country where the cost of living is lower?

Such behaviour would also help those poor that decide to stay. As the pool of low-skilled labor decreases, the market should respond by bidding up the wages of those that remain, and thereby making them less poor.

New York needs to export it’s poor, for their own good and the City’s.